


Fake News

by Zombieprinz



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn, i bring to you the fabled, once again., reverse fake dating au, the press is getting everything wrong
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 14:57:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18209852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zombieprinz/pseuds/Zombieprinz
Summary: Sam and Rafe are dating. Except they aren't, and the boulevard press is making shit up based off a photo with no context. That's what you get for getting famous overnight by finding a fabled pirate treasure.





	Fake News

The morning greeted Sam with a slap in the face out of nowhere, and the clatter and rustle of bound paper falling to the floor.

He took a step backwards, more in surprise than in pain, really, and cursed the very day when Nathan had decided to push Rafe out of the way of all that falling treasure. He’d probably have died in the fire himself, but hell if he wouldn’t have been at peace then.   
Because Rafe, who had apparently just slapped him with one of those muckraking newspapers that dealt entirely in the affairs of people Sam had no need to know about, looked like he was ready to raise hell.

“What in the everloving fuck was that for?” Sam asked and picked the newspaper off the porch of his shitty apartment while Rafe already pushed his way inside like he owned the place. Little shit probably did by now, just to hike up rent and piss Sam off. 

“Page four, Samuel. I have been given reason to believe you can read.” Was the only cryptic answer Sam got, but he was used to it. Too much hanging around with snarky bastards. 

“Who is Rafe Adler’s mysterious saviour? Really Rafe? Did you get into more trouble while I was….oh.” Sam trailed off, because right there on page four, in fact taking up all of page four, was a grainy picture of himself and Rafe, taken right after the cave with Avery’s ship had caved in. Rafe’s leg had been broken by the falling treasure, and Nate had left Sam to carry Rafe onto the shore. It had been undignified back then, but the newspaper was making it into something it certainly wasn’t. There were more pictures. Rafe leaning against Sam, the cave, where falling rocks and fire were just visible, Rafe and Sam inside the plane. “Well…”

“Care to explain where these pictures came from?” Rafe sounded incensed, so Sam simply shrugged. The only other people who had been there with them were Elena and Sully, and Sam distinctly recalled her playing around with a shitty five-megapixel digital cam she had found aboard Sully’s G-21. He remembered only because she had complained to him that she had only found it after all the action had been over. 

“Nate mentioned that someone had broken into Elena’s car last week.” Sam shrugged and walked over to his fridge. If Rafe wasn’t planning to leave him to his own business, he might as well have the breakfast he had neglected earlier. “Don’t ask me why the reporter was taking pictures though, that’s like asking why Nate goes chasing after treasure.” 

That seemed to somewhat take the wind out of Rafe’s sails, and he sat down at the table where he could see Sam cracking some eggs into a skillet.   
“Read the rest of the article to me? I’m in the mood for some comedy.” 

With a bone-deep, overdramatic sigh, Rafe actually obliged Sam’s request, and started to read with a flat voice, obviously still holding back his anger. 

“Rafe Adler (26), heir to the Adler fortune and one of …. do you really want to know that half the boulevard press seems to have a hard-on for me? Blah, blah, seems to have found not only the fabled treasure of legendary pirate Henry Every - really? - but also love. He could be seen in the arms of his yet unidentified saviour in the aftermath of an explosion that put a halt into Adler’s efforts at recovering the treasure.” Rafe’s voice had gotten even more flat and pressed towards the end, and he stopped, chucked the paper across the room into the recycling bin, and rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation.   
Sam snorted in amusement. 

“Not so bad. They could have figured out who I was.” 

“Well I don’t have the luxury of fameless anonymity.” Rafe eyed the plate with eggs and bacon that Sam had handed over suspiciously, but decided to accept it anyway. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold.” 

“What, that you’re in fact a heartless bitch who employs foreign mercenaries to uncover untold treasures? Please, the press would have a field day with that statement.” Sam quipped back, and Rafe’s lips quirked upwards into what was almost a smile. 

“I could always tell them who you are.” 

“No you wouldn’t. People’d ask questions, and I’d actually answer them. You don’t want that, trust me.” Sam threw a slice of toast in the general direction of Rafe, who caught it from the air with an unimpressed expression. Sam slid into the chair across from him. 

“So what do you want me to do? Call Elena and make her sue the paper? Or do you want to do the honors, I’m sure you can afford better lawyers than any of us.” Sam asked, only half joking.

“Oh, I will do that, trust me. I’ll have my lawyers ruin their whole publishing company, and they’ll rue the day they bought stolen pictures.” Rafe shrugged, but there was a mad glint in his eyes, just a spark that told Sam that the psychopath who had chased a fable halfway across the world, was still in there. 

“Of course that’ll make them think there’s something I don’t want them to publish, but as far as business practices go, I’ve always been a more burn it down and salt the earth guy.” Rafe looked at Sam like he had just said the most normal thing in the world, but Sam distinctly recalled where exactly that had lead to. They were both no strangers to death and destruction. 

Sam cleared his throat. “Yeah, well. They won’t know what hit’em, let alone have the time for more gossip. But honestly, it could be worse.” 

“How so?” 

“Uh… mercenaries? Large scale destruction on foreign soil? Not to speak of the archaeological nightmare you left behind?” 

“If nothing’s turned up in the news by now, it won’t anymore, trust me. There’s always something new going on. Academia, however…” Rafe stared off into the middle distance for a while, and Sam shortly suffered his own horrible flashbacks of nights spent poring over bone-dry archaeological academical papers. 

“I’m just glad I don’t have to actually put up with the archaeologists. Imagine me, trying to hold a conference on how exactly I managed to climb all those sheer cliff faces. They’d never believe me.” Sam snorted, happy to have allowed Rafe to take all the credit for once. He would have found it after all, eventually. With a bunch more explosives.

“Imagine that.” Rafe conceded. Some of the tenseness in his shoulders seemed to seep away and he allowed himself to slump more comfortably into the chair. “It’s still a bitch of a situation.” 

“You’ll get over it. Don’t tell me you don’t like to be the center of attention anyway, Mr. Famous Explorer. Just don’t try to tell them how exactly you managed to blow up multiple historic sites and half a town.” 

“All in the name of science.” 

“Oh is that what we’re calling it now? You’re just lucky nobody got hurt. You drove a fucking tank into a busy market.” 

Rafe stared at Sam with narrowed eyes, a biting answer clearly on the tip of his tongue, but Sam was right. People nearly had died. If they had, things would have gone very differently. 

“That wasn’t an asshole move, that was a whole fucking asshole dance choreography.” Sam closed, clearly satisfied with his metaphor and with reminding Rafe of all the morally questionable shit he had pulled and was still trying to redeem himself for. Sure, Sam was mostly over it by now, but Elena… Elena had a whole folder of articles and video essays ready to release at a moment’s notice that would put Rafe on the front pages of the international news for completely different reasons.

Rafe himself stared back at Sam and only the miniscule twitch in his jaw betrayed that he wasn’t ready to launch himself over the table and attack Sam with the butter knife. 

“You know, I am paying to rebuild all that.” 

“And that’s all that’s keeping my sister-in-law at bay, trust me.” 

“I am leaving the largest part of the treasure in the hands of the madagascan cultural board.” 

“As a permanent loan, and only under some serious backlash.” 

“I really can’t win with you, can I?” 

Sam grinned, highly amused by Rafe’s exasperation. “No you can’t. At least not in this. If it eases your mind, I’m really bad at Uno though.” 

“Uno? Really?”

“And Risk.” 

Rafe actually snorted at that. “It’s just…. you need to get into Australia and never move out.”   
“But where’s the fun in that?”

“World domination isn’t about fun!” Rafe stated indignantly. Sam just quietly died holding back a laugh and failing. 

“Rafe, please. You can’t just say something like that with a completely straight face. People might take you serious.” 

“Perhaps they should.” 

“Perhaps you should get your shit together about your megalomaniacal issues. Australia, really…” Sam finally managed to get up to put the dishes into the sink, where they would remain a problem for later. 

He stepped out onto the balcony to smoke but left the door open so Rafe could still talk to him. The man wasn’t very keen on the smoke, even if he indulged a cigarette every once in a while himself, Sam vividly recalled. Sam leaned with his back to the railing of the small balcony, one hand busy with his cigarette, the other scratching inquisitively over the dry soil of the singular potted plant he kept. That would need some water, and soon.   
To his surprise, Rafe joined him, and stole the cigarette from his fingers. 

“Thought you didn’t like that kind of tobacco…” Sam muttered and tapped a new one out of its packet. 

“Thought so too, but Madagascar taught me some things.” Rafe replied, looking out over the gravelly roofs. 

 

“Rafe, why are you here?” Sam asked. The question was hanging between them since Rafe had appeared on his doorstep, but now Sam had spoken it. Rafe stayed silent. 

“You don’t need me to do anything about this. And you didn’t need to inform me in person. I’d have found out eventually, and had a good laugh about it.” 

“I thought you should know anyway. This is personal.” 

“You don’t even like me.” 

“I manage to tolerate you.” 

“Really?” 

“On a good day, Drake.” Rafe admitted, the hand with the cigarette curled around his mouth to hide the grin. 

“I’m swooning. Rafe Adler, admitting to another emotion than haughty silence and rage. What has the world come to?” 

“Sam I swear to God I’ll throw myself off this balcony right now if you don’t shut up.” Rafe let the butt of the cigarette fall down onto the street below, watched it’s descent as if he were actually contemplating following it. 

Sam shrugged, flicked his cigarette after Rafe’s and went inside to put a jacket on. When Rafe looked at him in askance, Sam simply motioned towards the door. 

“Come on then, I’ll buy you a beer to make my company more bearable.”


End file.
